Category Archives: Academic libraries

New ASIS&T Bulletin

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This Tuesday we’re skipping the tutorial to bring you the latest issue of the ASIS&T Bulletin.

This issue is focused on search and includes an excellent article from Daniel Tunkelang on human-computer information retrieval:

In economic terms, HCIR aims to offer users better return on investment. Instead of slavishly accepting the constraints of the current interaction metaphor (users enter two words as input and see a ranked list of ten results as output) and attempting to optimize the user experience within those constraints, a search engine can allow users to get more if they give more. But what should it ask users to give? And what will users get in return?

For one perspective on what users should get in return for their search input, don’t miss this Thursday’s Lunchtime Lecture by Prof. Benoit: The ‘beautiful’ in information: philosophy of aesthetics and information visualization.

Tutorial Tuesday: Yahoo Pipes

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Learn to use Yahoo Pipes by building something useful with this tutorial from Tony Hirst’s blog. Dr. Hirst presents a practical and focused use of the Yahoo Pipes service for tracking journal articles by subject.

2D Journal Search

Even if you’re not working in an academic library environment, as students we need to keep up with LIS literature. Try building a Pipe focused on your LIS interests or even the journals recommended by your professors this semester. Leave a link to your Pipe in the comments!

Worth noting:

Many URIs effectively provide an API to a web service. If you ever see a search form, run some queries using it, and look at the URIs of the results page. If you can see your search terms in the URI, you are now in a position to construct your own queires to that service simply by using the URI, rather than having to go by the search form.

Look for more on using APIs in next week’s Tutorial Tuesday!

Open Access @ Harvard’s DASH

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Last February, the Faculty of Arts & Sciences at Harvard University voted unanimously in favor of an open access mandate.

Now Harvard’s online Open Access Repository, Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) has made its beta launch. DASH is built on the open source DSPACE repository project, and Harvard’s researcher social networking platform, Profiles.

There are currently over 1500 items in DASH, with new material being added all the time. In addition to the Faculty of Arts & Sciences, Harvard Law School, the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education have also signed on to the open access mandate and will begin contributing work to the repository.