2008-07-04 5:00
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Peter Suber has just released the July 2008 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. The feature article this month is Open Access and the Last-Mile Problem for Knowledge, and begins with the “tarmac problem” for disaster relief - emergencies such as Katrina where badly needed supplies were almost within reach, but never delivered. Peter compares this “last mile” problem with the problems of access to (stage one problem), and understanding of (stage two problem), scholarly knowledge. Peter argues (and I agree) that paid access to the published literature is not a scalable solution, as the volume of this literature grows, while the money to purchase essentially does not. Open access is the only scalable solution to full access to our scholarly knowledge.Peter’s Stage Two problem is understanding of the knowledge that is available. Open access is a necessary precondition for full resolution of this problem, but it is not enough. Learning or growing in knowledge is not just about having access; it is about finding the right article, how to sift through mazes of often conflicting data and opinions to find the information that will really answer your question. Some of the answers, as Peter argues, are technological - alerting services, machine translation, automated summarizers for long articles we don’t have time to read, text mining and so forth.All really good ideas. What I’d like to add: We librarians have much to add to resolving this Stage Two problem - building understanding, such as our skills in helping people to build information literacy, one-on-one help with finding answers (reference and research assistance), and our skills at designing and building systems to facilitate making the connections between author and reader. As our global storehouse of knowledge grows, with more research being done and published, data and new formats of publications made available, the need for our skills will only grow in the coming years. …
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2008-07-04 5:00
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Whilst I was a the Lifelong Learning conference in Yeppoon I met Simon Holt (shown right), who is Learning Service Librarian at the University of Otago, New Zealand. He has a blog at http://akorawa.blogspot.com/ and you will find a post linking to a useful mindmapping application and also (if you scroll down) to a number of links to material about Information Literacy at the University of Otago, which are worth looking at. In fact scroll down still further and there is another interesting post about the information research cycle, linking through to an article by Lesley Ngatai “Beyond Searching: Information Literacy for Postgraduate Engineering”.Currently I am staying with my aunt in South Australia (prior to coming home), which is very enjoyable, but she just has a dial-up connection - gosh, do you get spoilt by the speed of broadband! (Source: Information Literacy Weblog)
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2008-07-04 5:00
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http://eahil2008.blip.tv is a channel for recorded sessions (or parts) of EAHIL2008 Conference ánd screencasts of the CEC Health2.0/Library2.0 : Power To The users (and Librarians)All presenters have approved publication in this way.PUBLIC NOW!The role of libraries in E-science. Christine Borgman. EAHIL2008 HealthFinland - Finnish Health Information on the Semantic Web. By Eero Hyvönen EAHIL2008How to use Web 2.0 technologies in you library instructions . Dorine Kieft-Wondergem EAHIL2008 TO FOLLOW SOON!:Lotta HaglundKarolinska Institutet University Library, SwedenImplementing EBLIP to stimulate professional development [slides]Using your bite: a collaborative approach to evaluating improvement in information literacy skillsusing Web 2.0 technologies for dental and oral health students : a pilot studyNicola Foxlee, Pauline Ford (Australia)[slides]http://www.netvibes.com/eahil2008 is the concentration of all possible web2.0 stuff going on during and after the EAHIL2008 Helsinki Conference.Tags: eahil2008, eahil, helsinki, blip.tv, medical, health, librariesThis item is automatically generated from the DIGICMB Blog of Guus van de den Brekel (Source: DigiCMB)
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2008-07-04 5:00
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In thinking about our Library 2.5 session at NECC, Feed, Tag, Research: Remixing for Library 2.5, I’m realizing one of the best parts of it was the ensemble. (In fact, most of the sessions I participated in were ensembles and it’s exciting to see the collaboration at work.) I’ve posted a challenge at the end of this post for tech coordinators and librarians–so more of us can collaborate.Even though I was part of the panel, I got to experience the excitement of listening to so many other great professionals share their passion for what they do, and it was a great learning experience just listening to Diane Cordell, Cathy Nelson, Joyce Valenza, Judy O’Connell and Anita Beaman and seeing Kim Cofino’s presentation as well.You come away from conferences both invigorated and humbled, because no matter what you know, you have so much to learn and from so many unexpected places, too.Joyce as always challenged us to communicate with vendors what we need–she worries that databases are still too difficult to access, and wants vendors to create web 2.0 types of widgets that we can embed on our library websites or that students can embed on their own iGoogle pages, so that databases are at their fingertips–great point!Diane’s slides were so beautifully done and she shared much wisdom about seeking through reference interviews to understand your customers/teachers/students and provide gentle scaffolding to support them. Cathy shared her insights about speaking to others outside the echo chamber and the importance of attending/presenting at conferences outside of the library field, like grade specific conferences and subject area conferences and administrative conferences, where we need to partner with the other professionals we work with in our buildings. …
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2008-07-03 5:00
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Secretary Spellings addressed the Education Commission of the States (ECS) National Forum on Education Policy and announced the approval of six states — Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland and Ohio — to use the Differentiated Accountability Pilot aimed at helping states differentiate between underperforming schools in need of dramatic interventions and those that are closer to meeting the goals of No Child Left Behind.
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2008-07-03 5:00
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Secretary Spellings announced the award of $41,573,649 for 24 new grants under the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) to help more than 69,000 disadvantaged middle school students receive assistance to prepare for and pursue a college education.
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2008-07-03 5:00
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ED announced the award of $4.37 million in grants to universities in 14 states to help train doctoral, post-doctoral and other graduate students to work with children with disabilities.
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2008-07-03 5:00
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Independence Day, U.S. history, poetry, letter writing, energy and rock cycles, polar regions, plant genomes, nearly 100 science videos and webcasts, and teaching English language learners to read are topics of new resources at FREE, the website that makes teaching resources from federal agencies easier to find.
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2008-07-03 5:00
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More than $74 million in grants have been awarded to 27 states as part of a joint effort by the U.S. departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Justice to support schools in creating safe learning environments that promote healthy childhood development and prevent youth violence and drug use.
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2008-07-03 5:00
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Consider the following quote …..The role of the library in the university is being transformed. Information technology is shaping both the practice of scholarly inquiry and the daily routine of students and faculty, while library services are becoming more client-focused and more integrated into teaching, learning, and research activities. Demands for technology-related services, the digitisation of collections, and technology rich user environments are growing. Library professionals are increasingly directly involved in teaching students and developing their information literacy. These increasing demands occur at the same time as calls for accountability and for quantitative measures of the library contribution to research, teaching, and learning increasingly influence the allocation of institutional resources. The library must deal creatively with the tensions between, on the one hand, demands for free public access to data and outputs from publicly funded research, and, on the other, the protection of privacy and intellectual property rights. Perhaps it is the opening paragraph of an article in Educause Review or Ariadne about the academic library today? Maybe it is the blurb attached to an academic library conference? Is it the explanatory text on ACRLog?Nope …. it is from the job advert for the University Librarian at University College Dublin. The successful candidate will be one who “envisions UCD Library as the cornerstone of a leading international research University”.Often, in a document like this, there are vaguer references to vision and change management, to creating a library for the twenty-first century, and so on. It is interesting seeing here some suggestion of ways in which the library is seen to be changing, albeit in quite general terms. Quick Bookmarks: del.icio.us Digg Google Reddit Furl (Source: Lorcan Dempsey)
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